Gravitation Fan Fiction ❯ Wacky Wednesday ❯ Kleptomania and the case of the missing shuichi. ( Chapter 1 )

It all started one stormy Wednesday, when Noriko burst into Tohma's office, clearly out of breath, and oddly enough, one of Kumagouro's floppy pink ears hanging out of her shirt—a tell-tale stuffed-rabbit lump showing where the rest of Ryuichi's friend was. Tohma gaped openly at her as she pressed her ear to the door, listening for something. “Okay, he's gone,” she sighed, pulling the stuffed toy out of her bra.

“Um… Noriko-san… what are you—”

Noriko looked up, as if seeing him for the first time, then dashed over and jumped onto his desk. “Alright, here's the scoop,” she began. “Ryuichi stole my lipstick, so I'm taking Kumagouro. What I need you to do is pretend that I was never here!” Eye twitching slightly, Tohma nodded.

“You were here?”

“Bingo. Now I also need you to harbor this for me…” she sat Kumagouro on his head, then hopped off the desk, caught her shoe on the chair, and fell flat on her face. Sitting up swiftly, she added, “You need to forget that, too.” Waving, she ran for the door, snatching up Tohma's jacket and stuffing it in her shirt “I'm borrowing this!” and arranged it to look like Kumagouro.

As swiftly as she had entered, she was gone, leaving Tohma blinking in confusion with a pink rabbit on his head. Sighing, he put the ball of fluff into his desk drawer, and was about to get back to work when…

 

BANG!

 

The door flew open and reverberated off the wall as a certain brunette flew in, latching himself firmly to Tohma's leg. “KUMA KUMA KUMA!!!” he sobbed. “Where's Kumagouro nanoda? I want Kuma-chan!”

Tohma glanced up towards the door, and caught a brief glimpse of Noriko (who was now wearing his jacket for some reason) shaking her fist at him. All thoughts of revealing the stolen bunny were forsaken abruptly. “Did you lose him, Ryuichi?” he asked instead.

“Of course not!!” shrieked Ryu. “I never lose things!!” Tohma coughed slightly. “Ok, ok, maybe I lose a FEW things… occasionally… often… like my keys… Tohma, have you seen my keys…?” Ryu blinked. “What I mean is `No, of course I didn't lose Kuma-chan, because NORIKO KIDNAPED HIM!!!!!'” He burst into a fresh wave of tears at this. “I thought she had him in her shirt because she thought I didn't care about him enough to stick my hands in there—”

“Waitwaitwait! You said `thought'?” interrupted Tohma suddenly, glancing up at Noriko.

“Well, yeah, she thought I wouldn't reach down her shirt for Kuma-chan, but I did, and guess what!” Ryu jumped onto Tohma's lap, grabbed the keyboardist by his shirt and shook him vigorously. “She jumped back, and her shirt ripped, and she had YOUR JACKET instead of Kumagouro!! So, I've come to the conclusion…” Ryuichi's eyes gleamed triumphantly. Tohma glanced at the desk drawer apprehensively. “..that Noriko is a KLEPTOMANIAC!!!” ::Insert sweatdrop moment here::

“Noriko-san? A kleptomaniac?” asked Tohma incredulously. “No way.”

“It's true, nanoda!” Ryuichi nodded violently, sounding like a 13-year-old schoolgirl sharing the latest bit of gossip with her friend. “She steals something from one person, hides it, then robs someone else! Oh, it all fits now, nanoda! Just like when I lost my keys! Ooooh, I'll bet she has `em! We'll cart her off to the loony bin and LAUGH AT HER until she goes insane from it!!!” At this point, it was quite clear who ought to be `carted off to the loony bin', and said lunatic was sitting cross-legged on Tohma's lap, foaming at the mouth.

“But that doesn't explain where Kumagouro is…” Ryuichi looked up at his friend's sudden stating of the obvious. The vocalist's bottom lip trembled, his eyes watered, and next thing you know, the waterworks were on, and Ryuichi was sobbing into Tohma's shirt (again).

“KUMA-CHAAAAAANNNNNN!!!!!” wailed Ryu, sobbing harder.

“Eh… Seguchi-san…. Is this a bad time?” said a voice from the door. Tohma looked up at the new visitor, who wore one of the most confused expressions the keyboardist had ever seen. “Er… I can come back later…” Suguru glanced at Ryuichi, who abruptly stopped crying, bounded over to the younger boy, and explained his dilemma, his theory, his love of chocolate ice cream, and the many uses of Noriko's lipstick. Suguru did not look to be in the least bit interested, and replied to Ryuichi every ten seconds with `uh-huh' and `I see' and `that's strange'.

“Tohma-chan, your cousin's such a good listener, nanoda! You could take a point or two from him!” exclaimed Ryuichi finally. “At least now he knows to hide from Hurricane Noriko-san!!”

“As you've told me numerous times, yes.” sighed Tohma. “Now, why don't you go find her, and see if she'll return what she `borrowed'.”

“'Borrowed?'” exclaimed Ryuichi. “'BORROWED'? She STOLE Kumagouro!! `Borrowing' is if I were to snag, oh, say, Shuichi's umbrella, with permission, and with every intent of returning—”

“Which you haven't done yet,” interrupted Suguru.

“I was gonna do it! Anyways, Noriko's `borrowing' things like Kuma-chan, my toothbrush, Shuichi's underwear—”

“WHAT!?” exclaimed both cousins, identical looks of shock on their faces.

“I did not!” shouted Noriko, finally entering the room. “ I `hid' your Kumagouro because you stole my lipstick, you little pest! And as for Tohma's jacket… I put it in my shirt so you wouldn't guess where I put Kumagouro! I borrowed your toothbrush ONCE because you got that hour-long germ phobia and used mine to scrub the floor, and for the underwear, I never took Shuichi's! He hides his somewhere, and I couldn't find them.” She paused to breathe finally, then continued. “I took Yuki's.”

“I don't even want to know,” sighed Tohma.

Suguru and Ryu glanced at each other. “Aw, screw that, I wanna know!” exclaimed Ryu.

“Simple enough, really. Shuichi took some of Yuki's underwear by mistake, and I borrowed those, thinking they belonged to Shuichi!”

There was silence in the room, and no one dared to speak, until…

“Alright, that's enough. Everyone out!”

“But Tohma, I need help finding Kuma-chan!!!” wailed Ryu.

“You can have the bunny back when you give me my lipstick!”

“But I wanna wear it, Noriko-chan!” Ryuichi was whining yet again.

“Here's Kumagouro, Ryu. Now OUT!” Tohma shoved the rabbit to his friend, who squeeled in joy and hugged Tohma until he thought his ribs wouls snap. “Ryu…ichi… let… go… kill…maim…”

“Tohma!!” shouted Noriko. “I told you you not to give it to him!!”

“Wait, you knew?” exclaimed Ryuichi, grabbing onto Tohma's shirt again. “Tohma, how could you?!”

“Noriko-san made me—”

“Oh, sure, blame me, why don't you?”

“Seguchi-san,you might want to go downstairs…” Suguru's voice was lost amidst the chaotic shouting, and only a few words were heard. “flooding… Shindou-san… toilet blew up… dry ice…”

“Oh hells!” exclaimed Tohma, as he finally got what his younger cousin was trying to say. Shindou had probably gotten bored, found the dry ice that was used for stage effects, and flushed the lot down the toilet, thus blowing it up. “Ryuichi, get off me!”

“Not until you apologize, nanoda! Kuma-chan says that drawer was dark and scary!”

Tohma sighed. “I'm very sorry, Kumagouro. Now could you tell Ryuichi to get off me?”

Ryuichi whispered to the rabbit for a moment. “Kuma-chan says he wants a kiss.”

Tohma would have slammed his head on his desk if Ryu hadn't been sitting on his lap. “I'm not kissing the rabbit, Sakuma.” Ryuichi looked affronted.

“Oh, it's like that, now is it?” he huffed. Ryuichi hopped off Tohma's lap, then waved Kumagouro threateningly. “We'll have our revenge! Today!” He then turned around and stormed out of the room. Suguru shook his head in disbelief.

“He wanted you to kiss that stuffed rabbit?” he asked faintly. “Alright, now I've seen everything…”

“What was that you said about the exploding toilet?” asked Noriko, turning to Suguru.

“ah? Oh, yeah. Shindou-san found the dry ice, and was trying to hide it… and he flushed it down the toilet… And I'm sure you can guess what happened after that.”

“Well, we'd best check it out,” muttered Tohma. This was not going to be a good day, to say the very least.

*******************************************

The bathroom was chaos. Hurricane Shuichi had struck full fource. Apparently the bubblegum-haired cause of Sakano's grief had tried to mop up the water from the exploded toilet with paper towels and toilet paper, then proceeded to flush ALL of the paper down another toilet, resulting in said toilet's regurgitation. Tohma slapped his hand to his forehead. “Where is Shindou-san now?” he asked Suguru softly.

“Probably hiding somewhere,” replied the younger boy just as quietly.

“Whoa-damn!” exclaimed a new voice. “No, no. Don't tell me. Shuichi?” Hiro splashed through the ankle-deep water distastefully. “He mysteriously went missing too, didn't he?”

“Couldn't have said it better,” muttered Tohma. “If you see him, please dangle him from the top floor's window. It would save the janitor who has to clean this up the trouble.”